In our busy, technology-driven world, it seems that folks are always on the lookout for ways to connect with others.  Many—over 100 million, in fact—have turned to MySpace, a social networking website where people all over the world can chat with their friends, meet their friends’ friends, network with like-minded business people, and share news with long-distance family members.  Now, not only can you experience such connectedness by logging onto your profile on MySpace.com, you can also stay connected far from your personal computer by using your cell phone to connect with MySpace.  A unique collaboration between the social networking website, MySpace, and Helio, a new mobile brand, can keep you in constant contact with your friends.

MySpace is a free web-based service that is open to anyone with access to the Internet.  The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which is also the owner of the Fox television network.  MySpace earns all of its revenue through advertising.  The networking website has become chic with the younger generations as well as with musicians, filmmakers, and comedians looking for a place to test their latest art.

Helio, a joint venture between Internet provider Earthlink and South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom Company (owner of the South Korean counterpart of MySpace, called Cyworld), is a new mobile brand that was created and designed to meet the needs of today’s tech-savvy young people.  Their goals include delivering cutting edge, exclusive services and devices and top-notch customer service. Helio is a mobile virtual network provider, meaning that it doesn’t have its own cellular network.  Instead, it purchases access to Sprint Nextel Corporation’s and Verison Wireless’ high-speed networks.  One of its first products is the Hero, a mini-entertainment system that retails for $200.  It’s got a 2-inch screen for watching television, playing video games, and connecting with friends via MySpace.  It also doubles as a cell phone.  Helio’s other products, are the Kickflip and the Drift. The Drift includes a GPS system and Bluetooth technology, whereas the currently sold out Kickflip is a tiny swivel device touted as a “personal party.”  According to MySpace founder, Tom Anderson, Helio is “the first and only mobile service specifically built for mobile MySpace access.”

The tech-savvy market that Helio is targeting seems to be responding well.  In addition to rave reviews about the Hero device itself, many are thrilled with the services offered with it.  Helio’s all-in-one membership plan provides users with 1,000 anywhere minutes per month for $85, 1500 minutes per month for $100, and 2500 minutes for $135 per month.  The Helio Hero gives users a number of options to connect with MySpace, thereby optimizing handheld MySpace encounters.  First, you can access your Mailbox to read and write MySpace mail from your Helio device.  Second, you can use the Bulletin feature to send messages to all of your friends anywhere, anytime.  Third, use your Helio device to read and write blogs on the go.  Fourth, your Helio screen has been optimized to allow you to view photos from your friends’ personal profiles.  Not only that, you can post photos to your personal profile so your friends can see your life as it happens.  Finally, you can use the Profile feature to view MySpace profiles and add new friends to your profile as you meet them—all on your Helio device.

MySpace already plays host to over 100 million people—and upwards of 200,000 new folks join daily.  As MySpace continues to grow in popularity, new means, like Helio, for using your cell phone to connect with MySpace are sure to enter the marketplace.

Tags: Helio

Computer Crime is Here to Stay; So Are Jobs to Combat It

What do a recent global crackdown on Internet child pornography and the arrest of Dennis Rader, the infamous “BTK” serial killer have in common with the Sept. 11 attacks on America? All are high profile crimes investigated not only by conventional police investigators, but by those specially trained in computer forensics, a new area of crime fighting.

Computer forensics is a branch of forensic science pertaining to legal evidence found in computers and digital storage mediums. Experts in this field investigate data storage devices such as hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMS, floppy disks, etc., identifying, preserving and analyzing documentary and other digital evidence.

While most of the attention given to people working in this field comes from the work they do with police to help solve high profile crimes, that is not the only role they play. Individual companies are hiring forensic computer experts to perform such roles as determining the root cause of a hacker attack, collecting evidence legally admissible in court, and protecting corporate assets and reputations from crimes such as white-collar fraud.

Andrew Hildebrand, CPA, CVA, JD and dean of business programs at DeVry University in Fort Washington, Penn., offers this example of just how important a computer forensics expert’s role is in a corporate investigation of financial crime. “First a CPA would be contacted by an attorney to work on proving financial fraud. The CPA would need to have financial records and data, some of which may be in electronic format,” he says.

“Many times in these types of fraud cases, the suspect has attempted to cover-up the crime by deleting various documents, such as MS Word memos and MS Excel spreadsheets,” Hildebrand adds. “Once the accountants have some idea of what they are looking for, we can work with the computer forensics professional to recover the deleted material. During every step from seizure of the computer through to court testimony, the computer forensics professional will use their expertise to ensure that the data is recovered and the laws of evidence are respected.”

Realizing the growing need for trained professionals with this area of expertise, schools such as DeVry University, one of the country’s largest, publicly held, degree-granting higher education systems in the U.S., have developed special degree programs to train the experts of tomorrow. DeVry University offers an accelerated bachelor’s degree program in Computer Information Systems with a specialized track in computer forensics that can be completed in three years. As they are pursuing their degree, students learn how to follow the trail of computer clues that are left behind when someone commits a crime of technology. They also learn how to document evidence and how to coordinate with law enforcement to track the movements of the bad guys.

“Students will be prepared for jobs such as security auditor, security specialist, security administrator, security analyst, Web security manager, security director, digital forensic investigator, privacy officer and compliance officer,” says Rajin Koonjbearry, an instructor at DeVry University in Dallas. “These jobs are in high demand and will continue to grow because of new and changing regulatory requirements.”

Among the career avenues available for students graduating with a specialization in computer forensics:

* Law Enforcement. Police departments and sheriff’s offices nationwide are looking for computer forensics professionals to help them investigate computer-related crimes.

* Corporate. Those with a computer forensics background can help companies protect their computer systems from outside attacks.

* Private Organizations. Any private organization with its own network needs computer forensics professionals to maintain surveillance on their systems.

* Software Programmers. The advice that the computer forensics degree holder can provide a software company about the stability of their programs is always welcomed.

“We are responding to the changing IT industry in order to ensure DeVry University graduates are prepared to excel in emerging industry areas,” says Eddie Wachter, Ph.D., dean of academic affairs at DeVry University Central Florida. “Professionals who know how to protect companies and consumers from cyber crime will be in great demand in our increasingly networked world, and the new specialized options give our students the edge in this evolving industry.”

To learn more about DeVry University’s Computer Information Systems (CIS) degree program, log on to www.DeVry.edu.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Tags: CIS, compliance officer, computer crime, computer forensics, DeVry, digital forensic investigator, forensic science, privacy officer, security administrator, security analyst, security auditor, security director, security specialist, Web security manager

Most people have come to understand that it is important to choose a complex password and to change their passwords often in order to protect their privacy and information. But security professionals now believe that passwords simply don’t work anymore.

There are too many ways for passwords to be compromised for people to trust this thin layer of protection. The Internet is now filled with technologies specifically designed to capture your password. “Phishing” sites that mimic familiar sites and keystroke loggers that track the information you type are now part of the landscape of the Internet.

People are becoming more aware that it’s not good enough to simply be very careful with the passwords that are used for important accounts or Web sites. Most people use the same or very similar passwords across many Web sites and therefore, when a password is captured, it can be used to access many things.

A recent survey found that 70 percent of IT professionals thought passwords were not secure. These same people admitted that one in five companies had already had a security breach that allowed private information to get into the wrong hands. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission claims that consumers lost more than $5 billion to identity theft in 2007 and businesses lost far more.

“Consumers need to become more aware of the danger of relying exclusively on passwords to protect their personal information; and Web sites need to provide simple and inexpensive ways for consumers to protect themselves,” says Evan Conway, chief identity officer of Positive Networks, a company that specializes in working with companies and Web sites to ensure that privacy and information is protected.

One approach, he explains, to having a more secure site is a concept called two-factor authentication. The idea is that prior to allowing someone access to an account, a Web site or application checks two separate things for identity verification.

“Not only does the consumer need to have the password, but must also have an additional method to prove their identity,” says Conway. Sites that use Positive Networks’ PhoneFactor (www.phonefactor.com) technology, will instantly ring either the customer’s mobile or landline phone when someone signs onto an application or Web site. The password is verified just like normal and then the user must answer an instant automatic phone call to gain access. It only takes seconds and generally comes at no cost to the consumer. In additional to preventing unauthorized access, it proactively notifies a consumer if there is a fraudulent attempt to gain access being made.

Other approaches require consumers to carry a special physical “token” with them that provides a constantly changing additional password to verify. While generally quite secure, this approach can be expensive and requires consumers to carry an extra device. Biometric technologies such as fingerprint readers and retinal scans are no longer science fiction and have been implemented in some cases. While adding appropriate security, they also bring a high cost and require additional devices to be available to make the verification.

While the risk of a breach is expensive for consumers and companies, bad publicity is also driving companies to make these improvements. Stories develop almost daily regarding issues of identity theft and privacy loss caused by failures of businesses to protect their customers. The Wall Street Journal reported on April 29, 2008, that a series of national medical organizations, including health plans and medical facilities, had privacy breaches. Beyond the cost issues associated with these breaches, the loss of trust can provide additional challenges and legal issues for these types of organizations.

What is clear is that it will take a combined effort to protect your identity and privacy. Technology providers continue to offer solutions that are much easier for consumers and businesses. Businesses and Web sites must implement solutions and actively promote them to their users.

In the end, consumers must protect themselves by choosing to do business with organizations that offer solutions that adequately protect their privacy. It is becoming increasingly clear that passwords no longer offer a protection that can be trusted by consumers.

To learn more about the PhoneFactor service offered by Positive Networks, visit www.phonefactor.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Tags: passwords, Phishing, scams, security, U.S. Federal Trade Commission

MySpace has an immense list of members; that’s one of the reasons why everyone likes it so much.  If there weren’t so many people with profiles, MySpace wouldn’t be half as much fun as it actually is.  However, there is a bad side that comes along as an unfortunate side effect of the sheer mass of the amount of people registered.  The downside is that it’s almost impossible to do an effective search.  Of course, searches can be done; it’s just that wading your way through the pages upon pages of results can be a mind-boggling experience.  When browsing through people who went to your high school, you might think that it’s just a simple search, but 2300 MySpace profiles later, you’ve seen the immensity of the website.  You probably didn’t think there were that many people at your school, and imagine that not all of them have MySpace profiles…it’s truly a bit shocking.

Whether you’re searching for friends, for people to network with or if you’re searching for a group to join, there are some simple ways to make the experience slightly less painful.  Notice that the word is not ‘painless’; it’s a difficult process, but it’s worth it.  One of the easiest ways to make surfing MySpace easier is to do it at a time of day when the server is not absolutely inundated with requests.  It may seem that virtually all of the time is a bad time when it comes to MySpace functioning properly, but if you are on the East Coast and up early, that is a good time.  Likewise, if you’re on the West Coast and up late, it’s a good time for you too—as long as it’s not SO late that it’s prime time on the East Coast already.

In addition to choosing the time of day, be sure you have a set goal in your search, browsing is fun, but it’s a good way to waste a whole lot of hours that could be spent more productively, such as filling out surveys to post as bulletins.  In all seriousness though, it’s best to have a topic in mind when you start your search.  If you’re searching by keywords, choose as many keywords as you can and be as specific as possible.  The more specific you are initially, the less unrelated nonsense you will have to sift through later on that is useless to you.

When searching for people, choose your school and then use the advanced features to choose some additional search criteria.  Even if you don’t want to limit your search to your graduation year, at least limit the search results to a certain age window.  If you’re 27, the 14 year olds now attending the school are not likely to be of much interest to you.  Of course, you might get lucky and stumble across a little kid you used to baby-sit who’s not so little anymore, but that’s an oddity.  Do yourself a favor and search for that kid by using his or her name if you’re that curious about how they turned out.  Otherwise, you’ll have many more profiles to go through than you bargained for.

By far the most fun way to browse MySpace is by networking through your own friends’ list.  Start with your friends and web yourself out from your own list to the lists of your friends’ and the lists of those friends.  Try out the degree of separation rule (everyone on the planet is only seven links away from you) and see how accurate it is.  You just might find some unexpected friends along the way.

Tags: Terrific Tips to Browse Within MySpace

Imagine being able to share your living room with your high school and college friends, family members, business associates, and potential mates.  You could chat whenever you wanted, sharing pictures, videos, and ideas—even if these folks are scattered throughout the country.  Sound like a great plan?  To many, the answer is yes.  Everyone’s home at MySpace.com, and you can learn how to become a part of their community.

The company’s website, MySpace.com, touts itself as “a place for friends.”  It asks you to consider whether you really are “six people away from Kevin Bacon.”  The website is free and open to everyone, including friends who want to chat online; single people who wish to meet other single people; do-it-at-home matchmakers who want to match their friends up with other friends; families who wish to stay in contact; business people who want to network with other business people; classmates and students looking for potential study partners; and anyone looking for long-lost friends.  Certainly, you must have found yourself in one of those categories—thereby making you a perfect candidate for MySpace.com!

Known as a social networking website, MySpace.com has become the fourth most popular English-language website on the Internet and the third most popular website in the United States.  The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, is owned by News Corporation, and employs roughly 300 staff members.  The 106 millionth MySpace.com account was opened on September 8, 2006, and the website reportedly achieves upwards of 230,000 new registrations per day.   Now that’s popularity!

So, what exactly can you do by making a home at MySpace.com?  The website provides you with an interactive network of friends, which you set up, personal profiles, videos, music, chat groups, and blogs.  It also has its own internal search engine and an internal email system.

In addition to being home to your high friends, family members from Kentucky, and your fellow kindergarten teachers, MySpace.com is also home to a large variety of filmmakers, comedians, musicians, and other little- and well-known celebrities.  These artists upload their short films, songs, and other productions directly into their MySpace.com profile.  Not surprisingly, having celebrities call MySpace.com home has added much to the website’s growing appeal.

So, how do you sign up, you ask?  It’s simple, according to the website’s instructions.  Your first step is to sign up and create a profile by visiting the MySpace.com website.  Your profile becomes your home on the web, where you describe yourself:  your interests, occupation, hobbies, etc.  You can also upload pictures and keep a journal here.   Next, you invite your friends to join your own personal network.  You can also search MySpace.com’s website to find friends who are already members are MySpace.com.  Once you’ve set up your network of friends, you can view the connections you’ve created between your friends and your friends’ friends.  Amazingly, some people find upwards of 1,000 people in their extended MySpace.com network.  Finally, it’s time to meet those folks in your extended network.  You can suggest matches and communicate with anyone in your network.

It is important to note that being a member of MySpace.com is almost but not quite like being at home.  In fact, one of its major criticisms is that the distance afforded by the Internet emboldens members to share too much of themselves.  The website has been caught up in controversies involving minor children involvement, indecency, and privacy.  The company’s privacy policy attends to all of these issues but seems to have difficulty enforcing the rules.  Teenagers have found ways around the minimum 14-year-old registration age and profile identity theft is reportedly fairly common.  As with any place where you share personal information about yourself, think and act wisely before and when you decide to come home at MySpace.com

Tags: MySpace.com

We’ve all longed to be the popular kid—the one everyone wanted to hang out with, the one with the cool looks, the one with all the friends.  If you are still trying to connect with everyone, MySpace may be the place for you.  The website is a place to network socially:  a place to meet new friends and share with old ones.  Your MySpace profile is the virtual equivalent of your face—it’s what everyone sees and uses to get to know you.  For this reason, you may want to pump up your profile with different tweaks.

Your MySpace profile consists of a number of different sections.  Your profile will start with two standard “blurbs.”  One is titled “About Me” and the other is called “Who I’d Like to Meet.”  There is also a section for you to write about or list your interests as well as specific details about you.  You need not fill in all of these sections; any fields that you do not fill in will not be displayed.  Your profile will also contain a “blog.”  In your blog, you will find default fields for content, emotion, and media.  Here, you can also upload photographs.  You will choose one of your photos to be your default image, which will appear on your profile’s main page, the site’s search page, and next to your name on comments you make and messages you send.  You can also upload video to your profile.

Once you’ve set up your personal profile, your next step is to spend some time on your Friend Space.   Your Friend Space contains a count of your friends, a special “Top Friends” section, and a link to view all of your friends.  You can choose to display a certain number of friends on your own profile, in the Top Friends area.  You can choose to display 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 or 24 friends in your Top Friends area.

Below your Friend Space, you will find a Comments section.  Here, your friends can leave comments for all MySpace viewers to read.  You have the ability to delete any comments posted to your Comments section, or you may opt to approve all comments before they are posted to your profile.

You can also personalize your personal profile if you know how to use HTML/XTML or CSS (programming languages used to create web pages). Just about anything on the profile page can be modified.  You can also add embedded music to your profile using MySpace Music, a service that many bands use to post their songs onto their profiles.  Video and other flash-based media can also be added.  If you don’t know how to write code in HTML/XTML or CSS, a number of websites are available to do it for you.

Some features are very easy to change using HTML, even if you don’t know much about programming.  Adding color, graphics, and sound to your profile page are some of the easy things you can do.  All you need to do is go to Edit Profile and enter the desired HTML code.  If you aren’t sure what HTML code to add, find a friend who has color, graphics, or sound or his or her profile and ask how he or she put it there.  You’re bound to get an answer and potentially make a new friend!

You can also use MySpace Editor for help tweaking your profile.  The editor allows you to easily add colors, backgrounds, and images.  It was created specifically for people who aren’t familiar with HTML and is a perfect way to get started in your quest to pump up your profile.

Tags: Tweaks

MySpace is probably the hottest website among teenagers and college students. It is rare to find a teen that has not heard of MySpace or one that does not have their own MySpace website. Even though you hear a lot about MySpace, you may not be aware of the history of MySpace and the controversy surrounding the MySpace website founder.

To begin to understand about the history and controversy surrounding MySpace, you need to understand a little about what MySpace is all about. Dubbed as a “social networking website”, MySpace offers a place for people to link together, interact with each other and develop and maintain friendships over the world wide web. In addition to sharing blogs and information about their lives, people on MySpace can also share groups, music, videos and photos through their MySpace website. It is estimated that MySpace is the fourth most popular English website and the third most popular in the United States. Users have the unique option of keeping their MySpace website very public for everyone to see, to keep it private—only for their eyes, or have it protected where only invited members can view their page.

How did MySpace grow so rapidly? The answer comes when you take a look at the history behind MySpace. When you consider that there are about 23,000 new MySpace accounts opened each day, it is hard to believe that this website was just started in 2003. In July 2003, a man named Tom Anderson conceived the idea of MySpace along with Chris DeWolfe. It took these two men and a small group of computer programmers to get the site up and running. Before long, word of mouth and advertising launched MySpace into household name.

It was in 2006 that some people began to question the original beginnings of MySpace. A young journalism student with a lot of research found some “facts” that detailed the history of MySpace and it’s founders. What is now known as an extremely popular social networking website that is accessed my millions, might have been originally designed to delivery spam to exploit the website Friendster, a lesser-known social networking site. This other social networking site had used mass advertising to gain users and not word of mouth like MySpace. MySpace founders may have actually wanted to exploit this website and may have never intended for MySpace to grow into a phenomenon that it is today. While there are no hard facts to support these claims, it is widely speculated that this was the original idea behind MySpace and when this article was published, no one associated with MySpace would comment on the accusations.

In addition to the controversy surrounding the history of MySpace, there are all kinds of questions popping up about the actual safety of using MySpace. There are always news stories about stalkers and criminals looking to get personal information about teens using MySpace. The site has taken many safety measures to help everyone have a safe and fun time using MySpace.

Whatever the hard facts are about the history of MySpace, no one can argue about the popularity of this website. While this social networking website is most popular in English speaking countries, primarily the United States, the site is reaching out internationally. It certainly will not be long before teenagers and college students from all over the world will be accessing MySpace and building their own personal profiles and websites. If you are a MySpace user, you can be certain that this ever-popular social networking site is here to stay for a very long time with very little thought about the history or original intentions of the site.

Tags: MySpace Founder

If you have considered becoming an eBay seller but are not sure whether or not you can turn a profit by doing so, this article is here to help you make that decision.  Most people who become an eBay seller really do not take the time to research whether their product is something that will move well on eBay and whether or not they can actually make a profit selling it there.  Thankfully you are not one of those people.

Deciding Whether Becoming An eBay Seller Is For You

The first thing you want to look at is whether or not other people are selling the product you plan to market on eBay.  If they are, you are going to have to look and see what they have recently been selling at what price, both the high and low, so that you can determine whether you can make money as an eBay seller for that product.  If no one else is selling what you have to offer than you may want to look online at other retail outlets to get a good idea of what the pricing for your product is.  Compare that with your costs and overhead to determine whether it is a good idea to try to market that product.  Most people will be unwilling to pay more for a retail item through eBay than they would through a retail store.

Next you have to figure out what all the extra costs for your product will be.  Taxes, shipping and what expense (if any) there will be to ship to a foreign country.  Some countries have very specific rules on what can and cannot be shipped from your location to there so make absolutely sure that you have all your ducks in a row before you start listing.

After all the financials have been worked out, your next step to becoming an eBay seller is to figure out how many items you can list at one time.  Be sure to only list as many items as you have available to ship because anything more than that could result in negative feedback and that would be very detrimental to your online business.   After you have figured out how much stock you can hold, you need to determine how much that overall stock will make you and how long you expect to rotate through it. This will then give you a final total for you expected annual income.

Take a look at this final number and if it is worth it to you for the amount of hours you will need to put in to manage your online business, than move forward.  If not, do not hesitate to back away from becoming an eBay seller.  More than likely you have overestimated your profit and underestimated your cost so be very careful of moving forward on anything that does not look extremely profitable.

Tags: eBay Seller

MySpace has become the virtual place to be—a place where people hang out, meet new friends, share videos and photos with family and friends, and interact with business colleagues.  The connections you form with old and new friends, colleagues and potential colleagues, and your family members start with your personal profile.  This article will take a look at MySpace profiling from start to finish.

Before we begin discussing how to set up a MySpace personal profile, let’s look into the MySpace phenomenon.  Founded in Santa Monica, California, and currently owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, also owner of Fox Network, MySpace is a free service that requires only access to the Internet.  It makes its money via advertising seen throughout the website’s many pages.  It has become the place to be for many chic twenty-somethings as well as musicians, comedians, and filmmakers looking for a new way to share their work.  Once you get involved, you’ll find many, many opportunities to become connected to many, many different types of people.  And, you personal profile is the place you’ll start.  Don’t worry about doing too much to start—you’ll get plenty of ideas for your profile by visiting others’ profiles.

Your MySpace profile consists of a number of different sections.  Your profile will start with two standard “blurbs.”  One is titled “About Me” and the other is called “Who I’d Like to Meet.”  There is also a section for you to write about or list your interests as well as specific details about you.  You need not fill in all of these sections; any fields that you do not fill in will not be displayed.  Your profile will also contain a “blog.”  In your blog, you will find default fields for content, emotion, and media.  Here, you can also upload photographs.  You will choose one of your photos to be your default image, which will appear on your profile’s main page, the site’s search page, and next to your name on comments you make and messages you send.  You can also upload video to your profile.

Once you’ve set up your personal profile, your next step is to spend some time on your Friend Space.   Your Friend Space contains a count of your friends, a special “Top Friends” section, and a link to view all of your friends.  You can choose to display a certain number of friends on your own profile, in the Top Friends area.  You can choose to display 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 or 24 friends in your Top Friends area.

Below your Friend Space, you will find a Comments section.  Here, your friends can leave comments for all MySpace viewers to read.  You have the ability to delete any comments posted to your Comments section, or you may opt to approve all comments before they are posted to your profile.

You can also personalize your personal profile if you know how to use HTML/XTML or CSS. Just about anything on the profile page can be modified.  You can also add embedded music to your profile using MySpace Music, a service that many bands use to post their songs onto their profiles.  Video and other flash-based media can also be added.  If you don’t know how to write code in HTML/XTML or CSS, a number of websites are available to do it for you.

Your MySpace profiling from start to finish can take as much or as little time as you are prepared to put in.  A simple profile can be set up easily in minutes.  You can then add to your profile as you become more comfortable with the service.

Tags: MySpace Profile

eBay is the best universal marketplace on the internet, you can buy and sell to people that are on the other side of the world.  However, the amazing technology opens the door for scam artists as well.  No matter how legitimate a seller may seem, the anonymity of the internet creates an open field for the con artist and scam artist.

Most Common eBay Scam

The most common eBay scam occurs when a buyer bids or does a Buy-it-Now on an item and then asks you to immediately ship out the item via express mail.  Most people think that they will be able to tell the difference between a real sale and a fake but it is very difficult to distinguish.  Commonly, scammers pose as Nigerians that are out of the country on business or are in the country and sending out an item to a family member overseas.

Sometimes they will do the Buy-it-Now option.  In order to avoid these sorts of eBay scams, set guidelines when you have that option.  For instance, you can make it so the person has to have at least 10 positive feedbacks or whatever number you choose before they can buy it now.  You will notice that scammers often have zero feedback or private so others cannot view it.  You can also set these qualifications for regular auctions just to be sure.

eBay scammers have gotten smarter because they now even incorporate PayPal.  Normally what they will do is send an initial e-mail saying that they have bid on or bought your item and they need you to send it out immediately, via express mail.  They say that they sent the money through PayPal but that PayPal will not release the money until they have a tracking number (meaning you shipped it) for the buyer’s security.  This is never true!  PayPal will never hold your money unless your account is frozen for some reason.

Then the scammers even go so far as to create a fake PayPal e-mail.  They will use the PayPal logo and they make the e-mail look as official as possible.  They make PayPal’s e-mail explain exactly what their e-mail said only in more sophisticated terminology.  Therefore, don’t ever trust an e-mail.  First of all, if you’re an experienced user, there are ways to tell the difference.  For example, an e-mail from PayPal will be username@PayPal.com whereas a fake e-mail will be PayPal@ Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail.com.  Fake e-mails will never have the PayPal server e-mail, it is impossible.  Pay attention to this.  Not to mention, in most cases eBay scam artists will send PayPal e-mails with very broken English.

The best and most sure way to know whether or not you have received a payment is by signing into your PayPal.  eBay scam artists can send you messages through eBay or through e-mail but they cannot make it appear like you have money in your account if you do not.  Never send an item out or take any action until you see that money in your account.  Once it is there, it is yours to do whatever you want with.  Surprisingly, eBay scammers get away with these sorts of things every day; you’d be surprised how clever they can get.  There’s no way to know for sure unless you have the money in your account!

Tags: eBay Scam